“If that thing goes in my mouth,” she said, watching his mighty schlong flail in the wind, “I’ll die faster than if I was hit by most of the weapons out here.”
He laughed at that and shrugged, pulling out his twin blasters from hip holsters. “The devil cursed me with this monstrosity. Does that mean I’m forever doomed to never get a good blow job from you?”
“Nothing’s off the table,” she said with a wink, already focusing ahead again as they reached the outskirts of the fighting.
She wasn’t here to kill randomly, unlike some of the armies, but to gather as many recruits as possible. Her team selected those they thought worthy, and formed them into a line as one of her generals would shout that they were now in her army unless they wanted to die. Some chose death, too confused and scared to nod in the affirmative, others were more than happy to have defenders, to be absorbed by one of the armies and not die that day.
Since many had watched from home before coming here, they were familiar with Letha. They recognized her and her generals, and were ecstatic. It was like suddenly being cast in their favorite movie with one of the top stars, only this movie involved bloodshed and crazy sexual celebrations. Hell, if they played their cards right, they might earn a spot in Letha’s bed. Some thought it would be the equivalent of having the opportunity to be with a goddess, as if Aphrodite herself would lay back and spread her legs for them. When the new recruits were told to fight, to hold their position or be cast back out into the chaos, they naturally fought with fervor.
“Strip,” Trunk shouted to several of the newest recruits, laughing as they immediately did as he told. “We want all cameras on us, we want bidders going crazy, fans screaming our names. Let the wind caress your breasts and inner thighs, let your glory be screamed out loud!”
As Letha slammed a would-be attacker in the throat with her shocker, Redwood set up several of the recruits with energy shields and directed them to the group’s flanks and rear. These shields weren’t cheap, but they were necessary for being out in the open like this.
“FUCK YOU ALL!” one of their new recruits screamed, having seen an opening and barreling forward. She was one of the three women from earlier. Letha turned, ready to defend her, but the woman slammed into someone else and then used the energy shield to separate a head from a body.
Hot shit, this one would do just fine. The woman turned to Letha, froze to see her goddess watching her, and then smiled and kept on fighting when Letha gave her a nod of approval.
A topless woman wearing animal hides around her shoulders and waist appeared with her followers. She was known as the Bear, a play on names because she was always bare-chested, and the fur might as well have been from a bear, though Letha was pretty sure it was from a local animal.
They were racing into combat. Others dove out of their way. The Bear’s crew appeared to be coming right for Letha. Then she saw they were actually fleeing from a larger force behind them. The force Letha had been waiting for.
Fireshot and his army had finally arrived.
18
Escape
Planet Kill, Field of Reckoning
Pierce picked up his pace to keep even with the mute woman. Under cover of the smoke billowing out from the transport ship’s ascent, they rushed out of sight to the rear of the landing area. Their escape was masked by both smoke and the need on the part of current inhabitants to secure their objectives. It was quick and simple: take the best, kill the rest.
To the benefit of the two Noobs, the festivities of Reckoning Day provided enough distraction for them to put distance between themselves and the sharp end of seasoned blades. As they rushed away, the darkness grew, limiting visibility. Together they tripped over a shallow dip in the terrain and were launched down a steep hill.
They rolled for what seemed like an eternity, crashing into each other at the bottom of the incline, and finally smashing against rocks.
Pierce took in their surroundings, assessing the situation. They were in a deep, wide valley, full of rocks, weeds, trees, and sand. Lush forage in the middle of the desert was an odd thing for Earth, but commonplace on Planet Kill. Pierce was reminded of Dregg’s counsel that this place was like no other, and that borders weaved of their own will regardless of human desire. Life makes a way, and this was the perfect proof, a planet where the very things that could save you could also lead to your death. Here was a place where weather could be peaceful one minute, and treacherous the next. The dangerous and the life-giving things in nature shared the same space. Enemies and allies could be found side-by-side in both humans and nature. All the while, the sound of gunfire, shouts of pain, and screams of victory filled the air. For the first time, Pierce was beginning to understand the teachings of his mentor and how his behaviors and personality made more sense in the light of actually experiencing such a place firsthand, rather than through a remote viewer screen.
“Well, I’ll be,” Pierce announced. A moment later he realized how cheesy he sounded. “Fuck it all.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the mute woman laughing soundlessly. She mouthed three words, but he couldn’t read lips. He shook his head.
Her shoulders slumped and she crouched to her knees, with her eyes to the sand. She was lost for a second, but then she lit up. She grabbed a stick on a bush, broke it off, and began writing in the sand.
“Nice to meet you,” Pierce thought he could make out.
He took her branch and wrote back. Taking his time with each word.
“Same,” Pierce wrote. “How about you?”
“Lovely,” the mute woman wrote, jokingly.
Pierce laughed. “Got a name?” Pierce wrote next.
“Essie,” she wrote. “You?”
“Pierce,” he wrote.
Essie giggled silently.
“What?” Pierce said, forgetting she couldn’t respond vocally.
“You make me crazy,” Essie wrote in the sand. “I can hear you just fine.”
Pierce chuckled and noticed for the first time that beneath the dirt and grime on Essie’s face, she was striking in a subtle sort of way.
“I’ll help you,” Pierce said.
“I’m more likely to be helpful to you,” Essie wrote. “What’s in it for me?”
He frowned, but her eyes bore into him. She meant it.
“I know a place to get some good grub around here,” Pierce suggested.
She smiled and gestured for him to lead the way.
The sound of rocks crunching and branches breaking reached their ears. He put a hand to Essie’s shoulder to stop. She understood and grew still.
An odd quietness filled the air, and Pierce knew. Just as they thought they’d gotten clear of all the chaos, they’d walked right into what was about to be a killing field. There was about to be a fight. Whether they were there for Pierce and the girl or someone else, he didn’t know. Either way, they were about to get caught in the crosshairs.
“Someone’s close,” Pierce whispered.
But the unexpected followed. Arrows and blaster shots flew in both directions over their heads.
19
Survive!
Planet Kill, Field of Reckoning
Pierce dodged, diving for cover as the dirt at his feet erupted with a spray of bullets. A flamethrower hit a man to his left. The burning corpse-to-be ran at his enemy, trying to take as many down with him as he could.
This was it, it was really happening.
All Pierce had to do was survive, get in good with one of the warlords. He ran through the lists he remembered studying—Letha, Fireshot, Pete’s Dragon, and the rest. He was willing to bet at least two were involved in this scuffle, and he needed to make the right move and impress the right one.
A pair of women leaped over a ridge above and spotted him staring in confusion. They wore tight leather straps of armor at key spots, and one carried an ax while the other had a machete.
“You don’t look like you’re with us,” one of the women said
.
“A recruit,” the other added, “or maybe a dead man walking. Which will it be?” She stepped forward, brandishing her machete, and smiled to reveal half her teeth were missing. “Show us your cock, and we might let you live.”
The other snorted laughter, preparing her ax. “Or maybe we’ll chop it off and keep it as a souvenir. We’ll see how generous we’re feeling.”
He was crouched and ready, debating what his training would have him do. Pulling out his cock didn’t seem to be the right move, but he had a feeling these two had some experience in combat. Plus, he was worried about them spotting Essie who was hiding somewhere in the chaos. He stole a quick peek around but couldn’t find her.
“Quit stalling, limp dick!” the one with the ax shouted. “Show us the goods or lose your fucking head!”
It was a stall tactic. His hand slowly reached down, slowly unzipped, preparing to attack. He’d whip it out, distract them, and then make his move. His fingers touched soft flesh. He began to pull, when--BAM!
The first woman’s head exploded. The other whirled around to see a short, stocky woman come charging through the brush. She tackled the other woman and they went tumbled along the ground. Pierce stared, amazed at his luck, and then put his dick away as he returned to the fight.
As the woman with the machete rose up to strike the shorter woman down, Pierce grabbed a large rock and caught her on the side of the head. The stocky woman was on her in a second, slamming the butt end of a rifle down on her face over and over until there was only blood and nastiness. She glanced up, gave him a nod, and said, “Your fly’s unzipped,” before racing on into the fray.
He had no idea whose side she was on, but he liked her. He picked up the machete, ready to get into the action.
20
Ambush
Planet Kill, Field of Reckoning
This wasn’t just a team of fighters moving for her, Letha realized. It was an actual army. While she’d been waiting and preparing to fight Fireshot in a duel, he hadn’t given the idea two thoughts. Instead, he had been forming alliances, buying off other warlords, preparing for this moment.
Normally this didn’t happen, because splitting the spoils of war was tough business and a fellow warlord was likely to turn on you. Alliances were great until someone realized they didn’t need you anymore or wanted your power. There was the other kind of alliance, the partnership Letha had with her generals, but that was formed from something else, something she was quite sure Fireshot was incapable of. She grimaced just thinking of it.
Dammit, she wished she’d told Aero to stay close. She noticed him on the far side of the recruits, but wasn’t sure he’d even seen what was happening.
Fireshot stepped up as his men bent over, so that walking onto them was like walking up stairs. Then he aimed and fired. It took only that split-second for Letha to realize the gun in his hands was the one Ulric the Warden had been selling, and that they were all fucked.
“Shields!” Letha shouted, diving back.
Two shields moved into place, but a third warrior took the attack before he could get his up. Three bullets ignited upon impact, shooting out liquid flame. The other two shield-holders nearby were caught in the fire. The shields stood in place as those responsible for them fell to the ground, shrieking in agony.
There was no way this was going to turn out well for Letha and her team, not if she continued like this.
“Retreat!” she shouted, looking toward the area where the smoke from the shuttle was still thick.
Three others went for the shields, more returned fire, but a couple were shot down. She was quickly losing her team and was pissed about it. For the moment though, she had to pull back and come up with a new strategy.
An arc of electricity shot across the field. It hit one of the shields and knocked its holder over. The shield hit the ground and the energy fizzled out.
Holy fuck, she wished she had bought that gun somehow.
The recruits were largely stuck between her and Fireshot now. Letha’s team moved into the smoke and one of the drop-off points on the other side, where they could get cover from the treeline. Going back the way they came wouldn’t have worked, even though it provided great cover. It was like trying to fight the current. The best way to avoid it was at a diagonal.
Aero was trying to fight his way over to her, but a portion of Fireshot’s army had moved to intercept him.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Aisha was saying. At least she was still there with them.
“Everyone stay together,” Letha ordered, leading them down the ravine as shots of electricity lit up the smoke around them. Bullets hit the ground behind them, others whizzed by.
A new recruit, one of the three women, prepared to leap down after them when her head exploded and her corpse toppled down.
One more advantage to having a Reckoning Day so close to home was that Letha understood the terrain. When it was far away, she would spend days studying whatever maps they could get, sometimes through the black market. Here, though, that wasn’t necessary.
“Tell me we have a plan,” Brink called out, helping one of the other ladies down and then waving Trunk to hurry his ass.
“Fireshot’s numbers won’t mean shit down there,” Letha said, pointing to the rocks and trees ahead.
He seemed skeptical but trusted his leader. They scrambled for cover, a couple of screens popping up with chats that Letha didn’t have time to read. She noticed a couple of words, though, such as ‘Coward,’ and ‘Only bitches run.’ This wasn’t good, but dying would be worse.
If she knew anything about Fireshot, which she was beginning to doubt, he would follow her down there.
“Projectiles!” she shouted, pointing to the ridge they’d just left. “When you see movement, let loose!”
She prepared a frag grenade, while a couple of her other team members pulled out similar weapons. Damn, she was down in numbers. They hid as far back in the cover as they could and still see the ridge then waited. The others followed Kale to a second fallback position.
A wave of enemy fighters appeared at the top, already leaping down for the battle.
“Now!” Letha shouted, and her crew let loose, turning to the fallback point as the grenades tore through the first wave. One projectile burst open and left a wall of fire in its place. Letha thought that was smart thinking, given the circumstance.
The rest of her team opened fire on the ridge, mowing down other fighters who tried to jump down. Some of them avoided bullets but burst into flames as they hit the wall of fire.
Shots were echoing off of the rock walls of the cliff face behind them, but then actual shots were coming from that direction as well. Letha spun to see that the shots were not coming from behind, but around to their left.
She cursed under her breath as she realized she’d let them be flanked. Instead of sitting here taking it from both sides like a whore in a three-way, she motioned her force to redirect its attention in that direction and led the charge. Her shield flickered more than once as it was hit, but none of the strikes were strong enough to take it out yet.
It was time to go all in, survive this or not. If she was going down today, it was going to be fucking glorious.
Letha pulled her newest loot from her side, a shield-penetrating level ten shotgun. At close quarters like this, it would do wonders. She blasted through the first two opponents. Barely flinching as her shield flickered, she dodged a curved blade and came up with her upgraded shocker, the strike connecting with a man’s body armor. It sent him flying up and away, to crash into his own teammates.
She spun, reloading as she watched Brink in his element from the corner of her eye. He unleashed fury with his spiked club, turning with a blaster the next second to take down an opponent who had been preparing to attack Redwood.
Rodrigo was the biggest surprise. Usually less of an aggressive one, he had been accepted to the group because Letha had noticed him moving with caution and shooting with precision when he�
�d arrived as a recruit. Even with a level one gun that day, he’d done well for himself.
Now he was howling like a madman, standing on a small pile of bodies and unleashing hell with two old-school pistols, shouting out a chain of curses that Letha couldn’t understand, but knew she liked.
Others had seen him too and were emboldened, but she was losing fighters fast. Already, more than half of the recruits she’d nabbed had tried to prove themselves and failed.
An enemy leaped for Letha, dressed like a ninja in what he must’ve thought would be intimidating style. With everything she’d seen here? Not likely. She dodged the first strike with a short blade, but his kicks and punches were years beyond her skill level.
Luckily for her, she didn’t tend to rely on her hand-to-hand combat skills, and in a moment like this she preferred to fall back and let loose with another barrage of shotgun blasts.
The first shot threw him into a tree, and when he fell she ran up and bashed the shotgun against his face. After a few good hits, she picked his head up by the back of the mask and slammed it back into the jagged rock he’d fallen on.
Seeing this as a good point of cover, she knelt, clipped the shotgun back onto her waist, and unslung the rifle.
BAM! BAM!
She took out two fighters who were attacking Kale, then nearly shot Trunk right in the junk as he suddenly jumped into her line of sight, tearing down the next enemy she was going to shoot. She started to look around for another opponent but couldn’t help but notice that Trunk was now scanning the crowd, shouting, “Grinder! Show yourself!” His tenacity was respectable, and that tight ass of his was nice to watch, too. He then ran off and leaped for the next opponent, his balls visible for a moment.
Damn, was she getting turned on in the middle of a battle? One that was likely to end in her death? She laughed at that, then forced her eyes away to shoot a woman to the left who had also been distracted by the sight.
Planet Kill Page 16
